"The state of affairs at White-Ladies is of infinite concern to me, Madam." "Is it, Sir?" "Undoubtedly, Madam. Your health and happiness--all of you--are extreme dear to me." "Really, Sir!" "Especially _yours_, Madam." Phoebe made no answer to this. Her silence encouraged Mr Welles to proceed. He thought his tactics had succeeded, and the creature was coming round by degrees. The only point now requiring care was not to startle her away again. "Allow me to assure you, Madam, that your welfare is in my eyes a matter of infinite concern." "So you said, Sir," was Phoebe's cool reply, Mr Welles was very uncomfortable. Had he made any mistake? Was it possible that, after all, the creature was not coming round in an orthodox manner? "Madam, give me leave to assure you, moreover, that I am infinitely attached to you, and desire no higher happiness than to be permitted to offer you my service." It was an instant before Phoebe recognised that Mr Marcus Welles was actually making her an offer. When she did, her answer was immediate and unmistakable. "Don't you, Mr Welles?" said Phoebe. "Then I do!" "Madam, have you misapprehended me?" demanded her suitor, to whom the idea of any woman refusing him was an impossibility not to be entertained for a moment. "I should be glad if I had," said Phoebe. "You must be labouring under some mistake, Madam. I have an estate which brings me in three thousand a year, and I am my own master. 'Tis not an opportunity a maid can look to meet with every day, nor is it every gentlewoman that I would ask to be my wife." "No--only a golden one!" said Phoebe. "Madam!" Phoebe turned, and their eyes met. "Mr Welles, give me leave to tell you the truth: you do not hear it often. You do not wish to marry me. You wish to obtain White-Ladies. 'Tis of no consequence to you whether the woman that must needs come with it be Phoebe Latrobe or Rhoda Peveril. My cousin would please you better than I; but you really care not a straw for either of us. You only want the estate. Allow me in my turn to assure you that, so far as I am concerned, you will not get it. The man who could use my cousin as you have done may keep away from endeavouring my favour. I wish you a very good morning, Mr Welles." "I beg, Madam, that you will permit me to explain--" stammered Mr Welles, whose grace and tactics alike forsook him under the treatment to which he was subjected by Phoebe. "Sir, there is nothing to explain." And with a courtesy which could be construed into nothing but final dismissal, Phoebe left her astonished suitor to stand and look after her with the air of a beaten general, while she turned the corner of the Maidens' Lodge, and made her way to Lady Betty's door. Lady Betty was at that moment giving an "at home" on the very minute scale permitted by the diminutive appointments of the Maidens' Lodge. Mrs Jane Talbot and Mrs Dorothy Jennings were seated at her little tea-table.